Mexican poet Javier Sicilia, who has led a national protest movement against the militarization of the "drug war" since losing his son to narco-violence earlier this year, met at the Federal District's Chapultepec Castle with President Felipe Calderón June 23, accompanied by some 20 other survivors of violence. After more than three hours of dialogue with Sicilia and his delegation, Calderón said he was open to "reviewing" his security strategy. He also said he accepted their proposal to create a commission to "work on behalf of the victims." The president agreed to meet again in three months with the poet.

More than 65 women have been murdered so far this year in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo León, according to the Mexican daily La Jornada. The victims included pregnant women and nine underage girls; the majority had been sexually abused before they were killed, and some had been tortured. Several of the corpses were dismembered. Northern Mexico is especially affected by drug-related violence, much of it from wars between drug cartels that have intensified since President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa began militarizing the fight against traffickers in December 2006. Mexican analysts say this "drug war" fuels violence against women in the region.

In what authorities call a dispute over control of drug trafficking routes and timber resources, paramilitaries linked to organized crime have used death threats and violence to cause a general exodus of the campesino community of La Laguna, in Coyuca de Catalán municipality of southern Mexico's Guerrero state. In a caravan of seven trucks, 30 adults, the majority women and elders, with 77 children, fled the night of April 21 from the hamlet in the Sierra Madre del Sur to Puerto Las Ollas, some five hours away on rugged mountain roads. There they remain, having been granted refuge by local residents.

Prominent Mexican journalist and commentator Miguel Angel López Velasco was shot dead along with his wife and son in Veracruz early on the morning of June 20. Gunmen broke into the family's home in the port city's Playa Linda section, killing López, 55, his wife Agustina Solano, and their son, Misael López Solana, 21. López worked as an editor at Notiver, the city's biggest newspaper, covering corruption, crime and drug trafficking. He wrote a widely read column called "Va de Nuez" under the pseudonym Milo Vela.

Statistics given to US senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) by the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) confirm claims that a high percentage of the illegal firearms in Mexico are smuggled from the US, although less than the 90% sometimes claimed in the past. The availability of illegal weapons in Mexico is a major factor in the more than 35,000 drug-related deaths in the country since President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa began militarizing the fight against drug cartels in December 2006.

A "peace caravan," which has spent a week travelling through Mexico to protest against drug-related violence and the "war on drugs," crossed the border into the US at Juárez-El Paso on June 11. Mexican poet Javier Sicilia, who led the National Citizen Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity, appealed for a similar citizen mobilization in the US. "The US has a grave responsibility in all this, when its citizens remain silent, they are imposing war on us," said Sicilia, whose son was recently killed in drug-related violence. "Americans have to realize that behind every puff of pot, every line of coke there is death, there are shattered families." Sicilia and his convoy of about 20 vehicles began their journey in Cuernavaca, south of Mexico City, and have criss-crossed the country, holding rallies against the escalating violence and militarization along the way. (RFI, Spain, June 12; BBC News, AP, June 11)

Soldiers on patrol in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Camargo, Tamaulipas, discovered a warehouse where two armor-plated "tanks" were being constructed after clashing with gunmen said to belong to the Gulf Cartel, a military source said June 6. Two of the gunmen were killed in a firefight, while two hid inside the warehouse. Authorities said the tanks—actually big trucks fitted with steel plates—were to patrol smuggling routes to the US. Officials said their armour could only be breached with anti-tank grenades. Mexican authorities say they have discovered more than 100 such improvised "narco-tanks" in recent months, which the media have dubbed 'Los Monstruos," or the Monsters. Last month police in Jalisco found a 2011 Ford F-Series Super Duty Truck with steel armor plates welded to almost its entire exterior, along with a folding battering ram on the front bumper. The homemade armored vehicle also had gun ports and a rotating turret. The tank was found abandoned in a rural area contested by the warring Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion. (Poder 360, June 7; BBC News, AFP, June 6)

Acting on what military authorities said was an anonymous tip, Mexican soldiers raided the home of casino and off-track betting magnate Jorge Hank Rhon the early morning of June 4 in Tijuana, in the northwestern state of Baja California. The military reported finding 88 firearms, 9,298 rounds of ammunition, 70 chargers and one gas grenade. Hank Rhon, a politician in the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Tijuana's mayor from 2004 to 2007, was arrested on charges of illegal possession of weapons, a federal crime, along with 10 bodyguards and other employees. The authorities flew Hank Rhon to Mexico City late in the day for questioning.